


Just for One Day

by voodoochild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-16
Updated: 2010-07-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 14:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/100604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one likes hospital muzak, as Hotch finds out and Garcia's well aware.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just for One Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **bibliothekara**, for the prompt: _"While Hotch is in the hospital, post 5x01, the muzak is driving him crazy. Garcia/someone else sneaks him in a custom-packed MP3 player."_ The quoted song lyric in the second part is from Sam and Dave's "Soul Man".

"Sir, do you have a minute?"

Penelope Garcia at his office door was always a sign of impending chaos, so Dave decided that the budget revisions he was currently trying not to fall asleep over could wait. He closed the file and beckoned her inside.

"For you, Garcia? You can have the rest of the afternoon if it'll get me out of paperwork."

She grinned and took a seat in front of his desk, twirling a fuzzy-topped pencil between her fingers. "Playing hooky from work? David Rossi, I never."

"I can't wait until Hotch is back," he said, sliding into a comfortable slouch in his chair. "He's more than welcome to all of this crap."

Her twirling turns into fiddling, and it's one of the things he appreciates most about her; Garcia doesn't hide her feelings, or even try to. They're behavioral experts, and she isn't, so why bother? It's refreshing - except when she's obviously uncomfortable, like now.

"That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Go ahead."

"Well, bypassing the $64,000 question of 'is he coming back?', because it's too early to tell, I know, even though it feels like we're missing our spine-"

"Not our brain?" he teased, and she shook her head.

"Nope. Reid's the brain; Em's the blood; JJ's the nerves; Morgan's the skin; Hotch is our bones; you're the eyes, nose, and mouth; and I'm our fabulous accessories, if we're going with a body-analogy."

He had to laugh. "Of course. But bypassing that?"

She pulled an iPod - yes, he knows what they are, his nephews had converted his entire Sinatra collection of .45's into mp3 format one Christmas - out of her purse and held it out to him. He tries not to flinch at the color, which is really, really pink.

"I'm flattered, Garcia, but I've already got an iPod."

"It's not for you, though you are my very favorite Number One," she sputtered. "I wanted to program it for Hotch, give him something to listen to in the hospital besides bad jazz and the Beach Boys. I know for a fact he doesn't own one, and when I was in the hospital after the shooting, I'd have gone crazy without Reid bringing over my favorite music."

He's heard the Bowie story from Reid, over beers one night at the Black Dog, and while he's ambivalent over David Bowie, he'd hope to hear "Fly Me to the Moon" when he's dying.

Dave took the iPod from her and shuffled through the 100 or so songs she's already got on there. Most of the Beatles catalogue - Hotch's love of the Beatles came out after an infamous karaoke night - a couple of Stones albums, Springsteen's early sets, Dylan's live set at the Gaslight, a mix of Billie Holliday and Janis Joplin, and some assorted newer stuff that Dave's never heard of.

"Is there a way to transfer tracks from my iPod to this? I want to throw on a few songs."

"Are you impugning my taste in music?" Garcia said, pressing a hand to her chest in mock-offense.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Dave answered. "But I know what he likes to listen to after a bad day, and you have to admit, the past 48 hours have qualified."

Garcia untangled a few cords from her seemingly bottomless purse, and pulled the chair up behind the desk next to him. She did something complicated with the ports on his computer and the cords and the two musical devices, and a bunch of windows pop up on his screen, replacing the Bellagio screensaver that had been up previously.

"All right, then, what are we packing onto this thing?"

"How's your blues knowledge, Garcia?"

*****

_"Wasting away again in Margaritaville, looking for my lost shaker of salt..."_

Jimmy Buffet again. For the twentieth time in two hours.

Aaron is fairly sure there are anti-torture laws, and he's also fairly sure that the statute of limitations on "cruel and unusual punishment" are still applicable. He'd bang his head against the headboard if he didn't already have a splitting headache from the nurses weaning him off the Vicodin. And if it didn't hurt to breathe - they'd said Foyet almost nicked a lung.

No, he's not going to think about that. He tends to hyperventilate and white out from lack of oxygen or excess of pain if he thinks about Foyet. He needs to focus on other things until he's healed enough physically, and then he needs to remember everything he can to add to the profile. That's what he and his team tell the victims; it's hard to think of himself as a victim, but nine stab wounds and whatever had caused the bruising on his legs say, irrevocably, that he is.

Unfortunately, there's not much to focus on. The television is rerunning some ridiculous teen soap opera from the 90's, the one with the gay kid and the aspiring filmmaker, and Haley's taken Jack to her sister's for some food and sleep. And the music isn't helping, as he's established.

"Now I know you're getting old - falling asleep before 9 at night."

Aaron looks over to the doorway and sees Dave - with Penelope Garcia behind him. She hasn't been here yet, and he has to smile at her brightness (lime green blouse with a pinstriped dark green and black skirt, pink pompoms in her hair, pink pearls around her neck).

"Nobody old in this room but you, Dave," he coughs out as he presses the button to elevate his headboard up. "Hi, Garcia."

She bustles over to the side of the bed to squeeze his hand gently, wincing as she gets a look at his bruised face. "How are you feeling, Hotch?"

"Hotch?" He tries to raise an eyebrow, but it's not going to happen with the stitches in his forehead. "What happened to 'Mein Herr' or 'o captain, my captain'?"

Dave steps in, pulling a chair up for her before moving to lean against the dresser on the other side of the bed. "Our favorite tech girl helped me out with your paperwork before we came over. It tends to beat the humor out of you. And you owe us for it - we were thinking maybe a round of Guinness before dinner at the Plough and the Stars a couple weeks from now, right Garcia?"

"Right," she sniffs, digging around her purse to hide the tears welling up. She brings out a Pepto-Bismol pink iPod, and holds it out to him. "Happy getting-better day."

He honestly can't speak for a moment; just takes the player from her. Neither of them speaks, and Dave coughs a little from the other side of the bed. He nods, and Aaron turns on the player. A pre-recorded playlist pops up, and as the first song comes on, tinny and faint through the earbuds, Aaron has to try very hard not to cry.

_"Coming to ya, down a dusty road..."_

It's one of the best memories he has from his childhood. His father loved the blues, and every family vacation (Hilton Head, every August without fail) they'd listen to old Sam and Dave records, old Robert Johnson tunes, some Bessie Smith. Patrick Hotchner would take Aaron and Sean down to the basement, introduced them to cigars and scotch and the blues. Dad had a lot of other failings (alcoholism and a dependence upon his wife's money among them), but those Sunday afternoons were perfect. Dad in jeans and a tee-shirt, down where his wife wouldn't see, Aaron and Sean lying on the old leather couch.

He never talks about Dad - had only told Haley the barest essentials when they'd gone to Staunton for the hospital visits and the funeral - but there had been a case in Staunton eleven years ago, before he'd married Haley. He'd been a jackass about it, too, like he was the only profiler to ever be in a pretty bad place, emotionally.

Luckily, Dave is a good listener as well as good for a kick in the ass.

"Thank you," he rasps out. "Both of you. You don't-"

Dave's hand touches his shoulder. "Yeah, I do. And it was Garcia's idea."

His tech analyst smiles. "You'll like Track 10, too."

He skips ahead, and smiles when he sees the title.

David Bowie - "Heroes".


End file.
